💬 My grandmother's house smelled of sandalwood and whatever was on the stove

My grandmother's house in Mallepally smelled of sandalwood and whatever was on the stove. You couldn't separate the two. Every morning she rubbed a sandalwood stick on a flat stone with a little water until it made a paste. Before school she put a dot of it on my forehead. I wiped it off at the gate, every single day. I'd give a lot to have that dot back now. I never thought about it until she was gone. The stove part changed with the day. Fridays it was lentils with a lot of garlic. Sundays it was mutton and rice, and the smell was in the curtains until Tuesday. Even the pillows had it. I'd wake up on her bed after an afternoon nap smelling of both. My mother used to say I came home from her house like a walking kitchen. Last month a man in a shop in Riyadh was burning a sandalwood stick near the counter. I stopped in the middle of the aisle. I bought a packet I didn't need. I burned 1 stick in my room that night. It smelled like a shop. The stove was missing. So I fried garlic at the same time. The neighbour knocked and asked if something was on fire. It didn't work, not even close. I stood in the kitchen doorway for 20 minutes anyway. My mother says the stone is still in the old house, in the store room under a pile of buckets. I'm going to ask for it when I go home in June. She said she'd look. She also said the buckets have been there since 2009.

For me it's mothballs. My grandfather's wooden cupboard had a whole shelf of them, wrapped in newspaper. I catch it in old bookshops and in relatives' guest rooms, and I stop for a second every time. He's been gone 11 years and I can't hear his voice in my head anymore. The smell is still perfectly clear. I don't know why that one stayed.

My grandmother's kitchen smelled of ghee and camphor, 2 smells I've never found together anywhere else. A few years after she passed I went back. The house had been repainted and rented out. It smelled of fresh paint. I stood in the doorway for a bit and then left. Your sandalwood stone is the part I'd go back for. I'd ask for it too.

My grandfather's house in Nampally smelled of old books and the tobacco he wasn't supposed to smoke. He kept the books in a steel almirah that creaked.